{"id":28710,"date":"2013-02-12T02:37:32","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T02:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=28710"},"modified":"2015-02-07T02:36:56","modified_gmt":"2015-02-07T02:36:56","slug":"toni-morrison-and-the-evolution-of-american-biracial-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=28710","title":{"rendered":"Toni Morrison and the Evolution of American Biracial Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toni Morrison and the Evolution of American Biracial Identity<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Occidental College<\/a>
\nOxy Scholar: ECLS Student Scholarship<\/a>
\nSubmisions for 2009
\n2008-12-10
\n17 pages<\/p>\n

Emily Isenberg<\/strong><\/p>\n

She enchanted the entire school. When teachers called on her, they smiled encouragingly. Black boys didn\u2019t trip her in the halls; white boys didn\u2019t stone her, white girls didn\u2019t suck their teeth when she was assigned to be their work partners; black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girls\u2019 toilet, and their eyes genuflected under sliding lids ( Morrison 62).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This passage from Toni Morrison\u2019s<\/a> The Bluest Eye<\/a><\/em> is describing the biracial girl named Maureen Peal. In just these few sentences the suggestion that Maureen is a mediator between both races in her school is clear, and this premise is supported by the sociologist F. James Davis, whose 1991 book, Who is Black: One Nation\u2019s Definition<\/a><\/em> explains that biracial people may act \u201cobjectively with the black and the white communities both while not being fully a part of either, and often being a liaison person between the two\u201d (Davis 150). Davis\u2019 observation supports what we see reflected in this particular passage, but throughout the novel we see that this premise does not continue to hold true. Maureen in reality cannot be the mediator between the two races because she is not actually accepted by either group. My analysis of Maureen Peal will portray her as the female version of Everett Stonequist\u2019s<\/a> concept of the \u201cMarginal Man<\/a>.\u201d This term comes from Everett Stonequist\u2019s 1937 book, The Marginal Man<\/a><\/em>. Stonequist, an American sociologist best known for his work in race relations, explains that the figure of the \u201cMarginal Man\u201d embodies the sense of inner conflict between the two races: \u201cHaving participated in each he is now able to look at himself from two viewpoints\u2026the marginal Negro from that of the white man as well as the black man\u201d (Stonequist 145). Maureen\u2019s biracial identity gives her the position of the \u201cMarginal Man\u201d who, according to Stonequist, cannot belong to either race and has a \u201cdual personality\u201d which is forced onto him by his society. This \u201cdual personality\u201d prevents the \u201cMarginal Man\u201d from developing cohesion between the two parts of himself. It is because Maureen Peal senses a lack of cohesion in her inner self that she rejects her black would-be friends, Claudia, Frieda, and Pecola, not because she thinks of herself as superior to them…<\/p>\n

Read the entire paper here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toni Morrison and the Evolution of American Biracial Identity Occidental College Oxy Scholar: ECLS Student Scholarship Submisions for 2009 2008-12-10 17 pages Emily Isenberg She enchanted the entire school. When teachers called on her, they smiled encouragingly. Black boys didn\u2019t trip her in the halls; white boys didn\u2019t stone her, white girls didn\u2019t suck their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1196,8,14],"tags":[13636,1827,3816,1240],"class_list":["post-28710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-papers","tag-emily-isenberg","tag-everett-stonequist","tag-everett-v-stonequist","tag-toni-morrison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}